Hold Tight, Let Go
by EstelRaca
Summary: Joe and Marvelous find themselves the only ones aboard the Galleon, the rest of the crew seeing to old business on various worlds. The two discuss the past and the future, where they've been and where they hope to go. Written for Kisaragi-Gentarou's Golden Week Tokusatsu Giveaway Challenge on tumblr, for the Marvelous/Joe prompt.


**Author's Note:** This was written for Kisaragi-Gentarou's Golden Week Tokusatsu Giveaway Challenge on Tumblr, for the Marvelous/Joe prompt. Set post-series, spoilers for the series and for most of the post-series movies (Gavan vs. Gokai and Go-busters vs. Gokai).

_Hold Tight, Let Go_

"I won't be gone for long."

"I know." Joe's quiet reply is full of patience, the phrase far too familiar, having been needed far too often during these last weeks. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, breathing deeply to drag the taste of Luka's home-world into his lungs. Smoke, underlying everything, but over that there is the tang of growing things, now, the scent of oxygen-rich hope, and it makes him smile.

"Just a month, at the most." Luka shifts restlessly foot to foot, her right hand on the strap of her bag where it lies across his shoulder, her left plucking nervously at her trouser leg. "I'll call for you guys as soon as I'm done. I just... have things I need to take care of, still. Cain's been doing all that he can, but this world—"

"This world was yours. Some of these people were yours, or relatives of those who were yours." Joe keeps his voice quiet, though he opens his eyes and meets Luka's evenly. "It's all right, Luka. I understand. I'm not upset. We'll miss you—you know that we'll miss you—and I'll be very happy to get that call that you want to come home, but you need to spend some time here now, and that's fine."

For a moment he thinks that Luka is going to cry, the normally stoic woman biting her bottom lip fiercely as a sheen covers her eyes. No tears actually fall, though, and the moment passes as she launches herself at him, enveloping him in a fierce hug that staggers Joe back a step.

"Thank you. For everything. I promise you'll be hearing from me soon." Luka rubs a hand across her eyes, smiling up at him as she moves to the edge of the _Galleon_. "And please tell Marvelous to stop sulking, because it doesn't suit him."

Joe nods, raising a hand in farewell as Luka grabs a rope and rappels easily down the side of the _Galleon_, landing lightly and easily. She waves in return, a small, almost comical shape disappearing into the unfamiliar twisting landscape of streets below.

Straightening, Joe allows the smile to fade from his face as he raises his head once more. Soaking in a bit more sunlight, he shoves his hands in his pockets and turns toward where his captain will be waiting for him.

It's not quite fair to say that Marvelous is sulking. He hasn't said anything cruel as the crew of the _Galleon_ has slowly emptied out—Gai to spend a bit of time on Earth, Ahim to help her newly-liberated people try to cobble together a functional government on their new planet, Doc to investigate a lead on his life prior to being a Gokaiger, and now Luka to her home-world, summoned by a half-sheepish Cain to help in the work that is overwhelming him. Marvelous has simply nodded each time someone asks, quieter and quieter as each crewman has taken their leave, and spent more and more time in the crow's nest, usually leaning half-out in a way that would have frightened Joe two years ago.

It doesn't frighten him now, though. Now he knows that Marvelous will not fall—or if he falls, he will catch himself, somehow, before he hits the ground. The pirate enjoys the thrill of a risk as much of the rest of them—more than some of the rest of them, because though Don seems to attract chaos he doesn't actually court it—but he is careful not to risk his life for nothing, and his balance is phenomenal.

So Joe doesn't worry, much, as he works his way up the ladder and emerges behind Marvelous in the small crow's nest.

He knows that Marvelous is aware of his presence—there's no way the man could have missed Joe climbing up—so he waits, quiet and still, arms crossed over his chest, until the pirate finally throws himself bodily back into the heart of the crow's nest.

Marvelous spins as soon as he's on solid ground, turning so that he's facing Joe, chest-to-chest, almost all space eradicated from between them. "So our thief's gone, too?"

"Luka just left, yes." Joe doesn't back away, but he also doesn't reach out and touch Marvelous, though a part of him aches to do so. He hates seeing that panicked light shining from Marvelous' eyes, hearing that hint of bitterness underlying Marvelous' carefully light tone, and he wants to soothe it away. He can't fix what he doesn't understand, though, and understanding will mean getting Marvelous to talk about what's happening—about why it's bothering him, about what shadows of the past it's dredged up. "She told me to tell you to stop sulking."

Marvelous' eyes narrow, a slightly petulant cast entering his expression as he leans back against the railing, out of Joe's personal space. "I'm not _sulking_. I just didn't see any need for another long goodbye. I told her everything I needed to tell her this morning when we weighed anchor."

_Do what you need to do._ So utterly certain, as though his voice could cut down Luka's demons and wipe away the scars of her own past. _If you need us, if you want us, call. Until then, we'll be doing what pirates do._

He had given all the others a similar farewell, making sure everyone had their Mobirates, their weapons, enough clothes, enough provisions, making sure everyone connected with their contacts before heading back out into space. Each goodbye had been a bit swifter, though, a bit harsher, a bit more _raw_, the banked fire that colors all of Marvelous' actions spilling out more and more.

"Stop _looking_ at me like that." The petulant note increases in Marvelous' voice, a slight snarl pulling at the right corner of his mouth. "I haven't _done_ anything, all right? There's nothing wrong with me standing up here."

"No, there's not." Joe uncrosses his arms, moving to the edge of the crow's nest and leaning against the rail, staring out over the unaccustomed colors of Luka's world. Strange, how familiar and comfortable Earth's colors have become, green and blue and brown. Why should they seem more like home to him than these grays and purples and light cyans? "Just like there's nothing wrong with missing them when they're gone, or worrying about the crew while we're separated."

Marvelous flinches back just slightly, his lips parting in a silent exhalation of pain at the word _separated_.

"You know they're going to come back." Joe lowers his voice, watching Marvelous' reactions. "Right?"

"Do we?" Marvelous turns so that he's leaning out over the railing again, though this time he is close to Joe, so close that their jacket sleeves touch as the foreign wind whips around them.

"Well..." Joe sighs, a bit of black depression rising in his own heart at the thought of the _Galleon_ without the crew that he and Marvelous have cobbled together. "I think they will. I _hope_ they will."

"Me, too." Marvelous leans just a little bit further, his hair fluttering in the rushing wind. "I can't imagine why they wouldn't come back, but..."

Joe waits patiently, resisting the urge to reach out and grab a handful of Marvelous' coat, to anchor the man with his solid weight. "But?"

"But you're all... different." Marvelous glances at Joe out of the corner of his eye, lips turned down slightly in a wary expression. "It didn't matter before. We had a common enemy. We had a common goal. No one was safe on their home-world anymore. But now... now they _can_ go home. Now they can have their worlds and their planets and their governments. Are you so certain they won't choose that? Are you certain that _you_ won't?"

"_I_ won't, I can promise you that." Joe bares his teeth in an expression that he knows won't quite look like a smile, too much bitterness underlying it.

Marvelous hesitates, turning his head so that he's almost facing Joe, still leaning precariously over the railing. "You... really don't want to see your home-world again?"

"My home..." Joe pauses, collecting his thoughts, choosing his words carefully. Perhaps talking about his own past, as loathe as he usually is to do it, will help make Marvelous feel more comfortable sharing the source of his own anxiety. "The planet I was born on wasn't conquered by the Zangyack, you know."

Marvelous' eyes narrow, his head tilting slightly in that felid way he has of showing curiosity.

"We gave ourselves to them willingly." Joe can hear the calm in his own voice, is surprised at how distant and dull the pain of contemplating his past has become. "Our planet was far from its sun, cold, inhospitable. The Zangyack offered the children of our world a way out. They held out the stars for us, provided we agreed to a decade or so of service in the military, and we took it. We took it so eagerly..."

Marvelous nods, slowly. "I'm guessing very few of you survived that decade."

"I don't know." Joe shrugs, dropping his eyes to his hands as the dull ache of old pains sharpens. "I never asked. Because it didn't seem so bad, at first. They _did_ give me the stars. I saw more in my first month training with the Zangyack than I would have been able to see in a lifetime scrabbling in the dust of my home-world. It wasn't until they gave that order... until Sid and I..."

"Until I found you." Marvelous' hand is warm on Joe's shoulder, even through the leather of his jacket, a comforting weight.

Joe raises his eyes, offering a true smile to his captain, glad that Marvelous is once again standing solidly next to him. "Yeah. That's when I learned that the price the Zangyack wanted for the stars was my soul."

"The stars belong to everyone who can look up and imagine themselves there." There is a stubborn set to Marvelous' chin now, a firm fierceness in his voice. "The Zangyack demanded more than anyone should have to give."

"I agree. I think I got a much better offer from a certain pirate I met right about then." Joe allows his own hand to cover Marvelous', squeezing gently. "But it means I've burnt all the bridges between myself and my planet. There's nowhere I'll ever have to go, and nowhere I'd rather be than here."

"No family?" Marvelous frowns, his hand tightening.

"None that I've spoken to in over five years, if any are even still alive."

The frown on Marvelous' face only seems to deepen. "No desire to go back and help your planet somehow?"

Joe shrugs. "The same desire I have to help anyone. There are a lot of planets, a lot of _peoples_, trying to put themselves back together now that the war's over." Joe turns his head, glancing right over the rolling hills of Luka's world, left to where the city rises up. "I think I can do the most good here, at your side. I'm a soldier, not a governor or a politician."

"Not a pirate?" Marvelous arches one eyebrow, his hand falling away from Joe's shoulder. There's less tension in him now, but there's still something pained in his expression, something tightening the line of his shoulders to a taut bowstring.

"Definitely a pirate. Haven't you seen the wanted posters? It's my number one crime." Joe leans back against the railing, arms bracing himself on either side. "Is that what you want to continue doing? Piracy?"

Marvelous doesn't answer, eyes fixing themselves on the horizon.

After a few seconds, Joe decides to press further. "Is that what you were before the Zangyack goaded you into opposing them, or is that what you had to become in order to fight them?"

"I would have been called _pirate _before they destroyed my people." A feral grin flashes across Marvelous' face, though it fades as soon as it appears. "I think. We weren't always the most loved by those who had a home-world."

Joe finds his own eyebrows arching up in surprise. "You don't have a home-world?"

"We did, once. I think." Marvelous shrugs. "But most of us were born in space. I was born in space. Our ships were our homes. We traveled, place to place, trading, doing odd jobs, selling technology, picking up technology... or at least, I think that's how it was. Most of my people died when I was young, so some of what I'm saying is only hearsay, not what I actually remember."

Joe recognizes the same bleak emptiness of old pain in Marvelous' voice. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right." There's still that empty resonance to Marvelous' tone, though his forehead is slightly creased, now, in thought or mourning, Joe can't tell. "I've seen my home burn too many times now for it to hurt that much. I survived when they murdered my family, though, a stowaway on one of their ships, and I won, in the end. I watched them kill my parents and I watched them burn a cargo ship out from under me and I watched them destroy the Red Pirates and I watched them burn the _Galleon_, even, but in the end I won. We won. Even on their home-world the Zangyack have no power any more."

Marvelous' hands clench into fists as he continues speaking, old empty grief giving way to raw emotion, sorrow and anger and a terrible fierce joy.

"We won." Joe places his hand over Marvelous' clenched fist, and after a few moments the pirate's fingers loosen, his palm turning up, his fingers clenching with Joe's.

"One of the few things I do remember..." Marvelous' voice is a quiet whisper. "A woman, my mother, I think, is kneeling in front of me and telling me not to cry. 'Don't bawl, little one. Tears don't keep crew at your side. Sometimes nothing can. Sometimes you have to let go in order to hold on, say goodbye to the body if you want to keep a place in the heart. No one wants to be trapped, love, and building a cage is the surest way to make someone yearn for escape.' I don't even remember who was leaving. I don't remember why I was crying. I don't remember if I stopped. But I remember that. I remember her."

Joe continues to hold his captain's hand, tightening his grip, not sure what to say.

"It's like that with a lot of what I remember about my people. Fragments, pieces, very little that would actually make sense in a coherent narrative." Marvelous' eyes rise, tracing over the fluffy gray clouds that are currently cloaking the planet. "'Don't build cages.' 'Crew first,' a man with bright red hair told me, and a black-eyed man whispering 'don't hurt someone if they don't deserve it', and 'if you hurt someone, know they'll try to hurt you back, even harder' as he tapped me on the nose. Heh, the Zangyack should have listened to that one. 'Don't ever do anything you don't want to; don't let others tell you what you want to do,' a woman with hair like a supernova explosion, white and shining, and maybe she's my mother. I don't know. They all picked me up, played with me, taught me. I think I loved them all; I think they all loved me. We were crew."

"And now you've built another crew." Joe's voice is low, gruff, and he swallows hard against a lump in his throat.

"Yes. Again." Marvelous straightens, sighing deeply. "I thought losing the Red Pirates was the worst thing that could ever happen. I thought watching my crew die was the hardest thing I'd ever have to do. And it was, I suppose, because of... the way it happened, Basco's betrayal. But this..."

"This isn't permanent." Joe places a hand on each of Marvelous' shoulders, turning the pirate so that they're face to face. "This is just temporary. Give it a few weeks, and we'll be back out among the stars together, all six of us, _crew_, just like it was."

"Not just like it was." Marvelous reaches across, running a hand gently through Joe's hair, sending a shiver down Joe's spine. "Never just like it was."

"No. We won't be fighting the Zangyack. We'll have to find new methods of piracy that appeal to us. But we'll be together. Our crew won't fracture."

"Yeah?" Marvelous gives a soft chuckle, patting Joe's cheek. "Yeah. I think you're right."

"And it's all right to _talk_ to us about these things, you know." Joe relaxes his hold on his captain, though he doesn't let go completely. "There's no shame in telling the others that you'll miss them, that you don't want them to go. No shame in telling any of us about the past."

"How do I tell you things I'm not entirely sure of myself?" Marvelous' shoulders rise in a slight shrug. "And I don't want to tell them not to go. I don't want to cage them. I want them to do what they want to—what they need to. And if that means they need to leave... I'll keep a piece of them with me, and they'll take a piece of me with them, and it will be all right."

Joe stares hard at his captain, at the easing of the tension lines around his eyes, and then reaches up to slowly trace his hand from Marvelous' hair line down to his cheek. "You really mean that."

"I do." Heaving another deep sigh, Marvelous ruffles his hair before giving a sheepish shrug. "I won't be anyone's jailer. I won't be anyone's cage."

"You aren't, and we know you never would be. So next time just _tell _us what's bothering you, all right?"

"If there is a next time. If everyone comes back..." Marvelous shakes his head. "Or even if they don't, I guess. You're certain that you'll want to stay?"

"Nowhere else in the universe I'd rather be." They are some of the truest words Joe has ever spoken, and they hang between him and Marvelous like a promise.

"Good." Marvelous leans forward, kissing him full on the mouth. "Then we'll wait for our crew together, and if they come home, we'll continue on. If they don't... we put together a damn fine crew this time."

"The best." Joe murmurs the words into Marvelous' ear as he pulls his captain into a tight embrace, finally giving in to the urge to use touch as a way to connect, to heal. Now that he knows what the problem is, what the fears are, there is no chance they will neglect truth to drown in the brief, fragile protection that physicality can offer.

"If we have to... if they don't come back... we'll do the same thing. There are always people out there looking for the stars, for a home, for a _crew_." Marvelous' hands are buried in Joe's hair, his mouth demanding, his skin gloriously hot. "We'll give them one."

Joe nods, not certain he can handle holding Marvelous and watching where they are in relation to the railing _and_ coming up with coherent responses all at the same time. Marvelous will know that he agrees, though he doubts that they'll need to think of finding other crew.

The Gokaigers are a family, and the _Galleon_ is their home, and though he, like Marvelous, would never try to cage them, Joe is certain that his family will come back to him.

A certainty that is born out three days later, when Gai contacts them from Earth, babbling eagerly about the new Sentai team that he has met on Earth and about potential places they can visit once they've picked him up.

They've barely gotten Gai settled back into the ship when Ahim calls, politely requesting they stop and pick her up the next time they're in the sector. She seems little different than when she left, at first, though there is a viciousness to her fighting during a run-in with a small band of Zangyack who have refused to accept the empire's fall that gives Joe pause. He considers saying nothing, but a glance at Marvelous causes him to reconsider, and he asks if everything's all right.

Her response is short. "Have you ever worked in politics?"

When Joe shakes his head, Ahim dons a small, cold smile. "After dealing with the pettiness I just did, killing people who want to enslave the universe is rather glorious."

Joe decides to leave the conversation there, since Ahim seems content.

Doc returns a week later, cheerful, waving them down eagerly. A small mountain of computer pieces and bits of technology that Joe is unfamiliar with is stacked beside him. When Joe tries to ask how his search went, he simply shrugs, declares that it's over and orders Joe to help him move pieces.

The call from Luka comes exactly four weeks after they left her. The _Galleon_ is at the appointed rendezvous site two days later, and it's a full, rowdy crew that descends to meet her. Gai almost immediately dashes off, fascinated, as always, by the alien flora and fauna. Ahim greets Luka with a gentle hug, the two women sharing a smile; Doc greets Luka with a wave, only to find himself pounced on by the thief and enveloped in a hug.

Joe receives his own hug with aplomb, stepping aside so that Luka and Marvelous can view each other.

"So?" Luka crosses her arms over her chest. "Done sulking?"

"I never sulk." Marvelous smiles, the fae expression that makes his face into something beautiful, just a hint of danger adding spice. "And if I tried, a certain ex-soldier and ex-thief wouldn't let me."

"Ex, huh?" Luka tilts her head. "Does that make you an ex-pirate?"

"Depends on how we're defining pirate. And what the rest of you want to do." Marvelous shifts, uncrossing his arms, holding them open for Luka. "We can talk about that now that the crew's all back home."

Luka dances forward, into Marvelous' embrace, and Joe smiles at the two of them—at _all_ of them, really, at their wonderful, beautiful crew, all together again. Bound together by choice, not by need and desperation and vengeance. Faring forth into a universe that they've helped change, helped shape, with their handful of rules that may-or-may-not have been inherited from Marvelous' people.

Luka breaks away from Marvelous, running after Gai, who is chasing a small lavender creature that is apparently much more dangerous than it appears to be.

Marvelous comes over to Joe, throwing his arm across Joe's shoulders, Marvelous' mouth coming to rest right by Joe's ear, his breath a warm tickle on Joe's neck. "You win, Joe."

"We all win." Joe leans against his captain, smiling again. It's strange, how easily the expression comes to him now.

"The crew wins." Marvelous gives a soft, contented huff, not quite a sigh, not quite a hum. "Our _crew_, Joe. All together again."

"Our crew." Joe's smile widens, becomes a full grin. "Though if Gai isn't careful, it might not be full for—"

A low yowl of agony comes from the Earthling, and Joe breaks away from Marvelous, heading toward where Luka is berating the man while studying his hand. Given the way she's yelling and swatting at Gai's head, Joe's certain there's nothing serious wrong.

Just their crew, exploring new territory, finding new dangers, facing the universe together.

They might break apart, some day. He understands what Marvelous was saying, about not being a cage, about not being a trap for the hearts and minds and souls of these people they love.

But for now, for today, they are together, he and Marvelous and the rest of their wonderful band. For Joe, the soldier, the star-seeker, that's really all that he can ask of the universe.


End file.
